The pro-Trump Committee to Defend the President paid for the digital
ad that appeared Monday on screens outside 1515 Broadway, Viacom’s
headquarters.

The building is owned by Stephen L. Green, brother of liberal
politician Mark Green and a major Democratic donor. But the building’s
tenant, Viacom, controls what ad space appears outside.

“The building owner received multiple complaints to remove the ad
and, per their agreement, they reserve the right to cancel any campaign
that receives complaints or negative feedback,” Bryan Hartong of RRTV
Media, the ad rep, said in an email Tuesday to his client, Dan Backer,
counsel to the Committee to the Defend the President.
Backer said the five-figure ad was supposed to run for the entire week.

“They approved the ad. How much pressure does it take to make a multi-billion dollar corporation knuckle under?” he asked.

A Green spokesman referred questions to Viacom.

Viacom spokesman Jeremy Zweig confirmed the company had the ad taken down.

Comment: Dan Backer, the "client" mentioned above, is a great friend of the Establishment. He has extensive experience with PACs and raising millions from small donors via websites. There was no more deadly serious co-opter of the tea party movement than Mr. Backer:

Continuing with the Stranahan interview summary, Eric Gurr was among the earliest of the five District 8 challengers to announce his candidacy. JD Winteregg announced shortly after he did sometime in January 2014. Others who filed included Matt Ashworth, Matt Tressler, and Don Carter.

5 or 6 local TP groups invited all 5 candidates to speak at
town hall events early in the campaign, presumably in January and February. None of them had money to offer, were just concerned
local citizens.

Eventually Eric received an email from someone in a local group saying they'd heard TPLF was coming to town to meet with candidates in
the primary, had Eric heard about it? Eric hadn't. Sometime after that Eric heard that radio talk show host Rusty Humphries was in townon behalf of Dan Backer's TPLF, and was meeting with a local Tea Party activist at the person's home. Eric hadn't been invited but decided to show up anyway.He talked to Rusty at the meeting but didn't hear anything from him after that. A couple of weeks later, a local person emailed Eric that the head of TPLF (Dan Backer) was coming to town to run a debateand a poll.Again, Gurr hadn't heard anything about this, looked into it and found only one person had been invitedto the "debate"--JD Winteregg. Gurr obtained an invitation for himself, so now a total of two people were at the TPLF "debate."The night of the "debate and poll,"
both
Dan Backer and Rusty Humphries were there but it was clear Dan Backer
was
in charge. No one else representing TPLF was there. Backer had said people
would be able to vote for their preferred candidate after the debate.
Backer set up rules for "voting." People who came in at the end of the
debate who'd heard little or nothing from the speakers were still allowed to
"vote" under Backer's rules. Apparently
Winteregg got 8 more votes.To add to Backer's mockery of citizens
across America who take precious time away from normal responsibilities
because they have serious concerns about elected officials and
government, the fake Tea Party "debate" was preceded by a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Gurr didn't mention this in the interview, I observed it on the video.
Gurr says after the "debate,"
a meeting took place in a small room. In attendance were Dan Backer and
Rusty Humphries and the two candidates, Eric Gurr and JD Winteregg.
Gurr had never met Backer before. Backer was in charge and did all the talking.

He looked at JD Winteregg and asked him if
he'd consider dropping out, said he seemed undisciplined. Winteregg
said, no he wouldn't drop out.
Backer, pictured above, turned to Eric Gurr and said he wasn't a good candidate either, that he didn't understand the issues. Then Backer said, "We're going to put some money in the race and endorse."

About 3 days later, Rusty Humphries called Gurr and said, "We decided to go with JD Winteregg,we thought he had a better ground game, we got a lot of emails about him. Your stance on immigration was a little rough,Democrats would call you a Nazi." This apparently referred to Gurr's merely stating existing law, that there was precedent for deporting illegal
aliens. Gurr told Humphries that was fine, it was their money to do with as they
pleased.

The next day, Dan Backer called Eric Gurr, told him that Wintergg
"had a much better ground game and would be a better political
candidate." He also told Gurr, "you'd be a better congressman but
Winteregg's a better campaigner." Backer told Gurr they "made the decision on the plane ride home."

DB
Capitol Strategies PLLC provides legal, strategic and operational
guidance to political organizations with a focus on PAC treasury and FEC
reporting and compliance through its … [Read More...]"photo of Dan Backer from TheTeaParty.net

"An e-mail written to CBS 5 News fromWashington attorney Dan Backer
stated that the site (JoinTheTeaParty.us) develops and distributes daily information on local
and national tea party events.Backer also wrote that the website does
not share the names or personal information of its donors with any other commercial interests."...

"A website run out of Arizona, ostensibly to support the so-called tea
party movement, is under scrutiny after a local news organization dug
into their finances and ownership, only to find what some may
characterize as a remarkable scam. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosure forms, JoinTheTeaParty.us took
in approximately$469,000 in donations this year and spent roughly half
its budget on marketing, with the rest going to distinctly
non-political avenues.

FEC forms pulled
by CBS affiliate show the group spent nearly $200,000 on search engine
optimization and Google sponsorship, along with Facebook ads promoting
their website. Submitting a Google search for “tea party” returned with
the site atop the list of results.

They even advertised the site on Craigslist,
with an impassioned appeal to “patriots” who may be sympathetic to
conservative causes. Ironically enough, the ad states numerous times
that this group in particular is a “marketing campaign” with a
fundraising goal of $500,000 per week.

The domain is owned by Todd Cefaratti, an Arizona businessman with a
background in data collection. His other business specializes in mining contact information and reselling the leads to clients in the reverse mortgage industry.

“Thousands” of donors have given their personal contact information
and credit card numbers to the tea party site, according to CBS.In spite of the obvious political implications of calling a group
part of the tea party, which is not an official organization or
political party,Cefaratti’s website is run by “Stop This Insanity,
Inc.,” a 501(c)4 organization — meaning, they are not a solely political
organization and they’re exempt from federal income taxes."...

"A little-known, Arizona-based tea party
organization has hired a prominent Republican operative to help advance
its mission in Washington, D.C. But after more than a year in operation
and hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations, it’s still not clear
what the group’s mission actually is.

Todd Cefaratti, founder of TheTeaParty.net,
announced last week that the group had hired a big Washington gun:
governmental affairs specialist Donna Wiesner Keene, a veteran of the
Bush and Reagan administrations and the wifeof the incoming president
of the National Rifle Association, [and longtime CPAC pres.] David Keene....

Despite its
extensive website and an impressive ability to pull in money,

TheTeaParty.net appears to do little more than promote its own name."...

===============================Early TP activist who mailed tea bags says the GOP immediately co-opted and hijacked TP: 10/20/10, "To The Tea Party: Go Screw Yourself,"market-ticker.org(Video of Karl Denninger MSNBC interview with Dylan Ratigan previous night)...."Why I and others led people to mail tea bags to Congress and our President in the first place: rampant theft of over taxpayer money propping up FAILED private businesses.

The Republican Party stealing the anger of a population that was fed up with

The Republican Party's own theft of their tax money at gunpoint to bail out the robbers of Wall Street

and fraudulently redirecting it back toward electing the very people who stole all the ****ing money! ...

The Tea Partywas and
is about the the corruption of American Politics and the blatant and
outrageous theftfrom all Americans that has resulted. It is about
personal responsibility and enforcement of the law against those who
have robbed, financially raped and pillaged the nation.Yet today we hear literally nothingabout these issues among the so-called "Tea Party" candidates and their backers."...
==============================

"Spencer was told that one of the co-sponsors of the award,
TheTeaParty.net, didn’t want to allow him to receive the award at CPAC
next week unless he promised not to criticize two board members of
CPAC’s hosting organization, the American Conservative Union: Grover
Norquist and Suhail Khan."

In years past at CPAC, Robert Spencer and Pam Geller have held panels
warning of the dangers of radical Islam.Looks like Grover and Tea
Party.net are running things now.

How absurd! Blogs have soared in popularity because they report what
the MSM doesn't! Now we have Grover Norquist and Tea Party.net
effectively SILENCING an American's freedom to speakabout the very
subject matter he won the award for.

It looks as though the CPAC Gestapo, Grover Norquist and Tea Party.net, have effectively silenced free speech!

It is my hope Robert Spencer and Pam Geller attend CPAC. The majority
of CPAC attendees support them! Norquist and Tea party.net do not speak
for us!

The Band of Mothers will be at CPAC to collect Post Cards For
Soldiers. The folks need to be reminded of the dangers among us and the
noble Heroes who keep us safe!

"The
controversy over the CPAC Peoples' Choice Blogger Awards continues to
develop, with a response fromJohn Hawkins, printed below. Here is the
original blog entry, followed by John Hawkins' response:

3/6/13 original post:

In
a shocking development that should alert all conservatives to
behind-the-scenes manipulation of CPAC and other conservative
organizations, the winner of the voting for an important award for
bloggers has been barred from receiving it. Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs reports:"...(balance of post).

A national tea party committee, the Tea Party Leadership
Fund (formerly known as the TeaParty.Net Leadership Fund), a hybrid PAC
with a noncontribution account, based in Alexandria, Va., contributed
$40,000 in May to In Defense of Free Speech JFC, a joint
fundraising committee set up in May. The $53,800 in proceeds were split
between four candidates, with each getting $13,450. The candidates were
McConnell, Cruz, Lee and John Cornyn, R-Texas. The McConnell Senate
Committee ’14 was sent $10,950 on June 29 and $2,500 on June 25.

Follow the steps used to send Tea Party donor money to Cornyn and
McConnell and note all the connections to Dan Backerand don’t take my
word for it: click the links.

One common link is Virginia attorney Dan Backer, who is the treasurer forThe TeaParty.net Leadership Fund, who took in over $3.4 million in donations in this election cycle. Most of the money went to fundraising and ‘unclassifiable’ expenses.

One of the groups biggest expenditures was $40,000 to a group called In Defense of Free Speech JFC.

Defense of Free Speech JFC
was originally set up by in 2013 by Dan Backer, who was also the
group’s original treasurer. Laster, a woman named Christina Sirois–who
works for Backer’s company DB Capitol Strategies–was named as treasurer.
The group was dissolved in February, 2014.

“I don’t have
Adelson money,” said Dan Backer,a campaign ­finance lawyer in
Alexandria, Va., who serves as treasurer of the Tea Party Leadership
Fund, referring to the GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson. “I have
grass-roots money. Grass-roots money is a lot harder and more expensive
to raise.”"...

Chuck Lindell of The Austin-American Statesman
wrote on Backer introducing money into Texas politics from Virginia, “A
Virginia nonprofit has poured more than a half-million dollars into a
new TV ad that sharply criticizes Texas attorney general candidate Ken
Paxton....

The Statesman also wrote, “Airing in the closing days of the
Republican runoff campaign in at least seven markets, including Austin,
the 30-second spot was created by American Dream Initiative, a
relatively new organization that advocates for ‘small, efficient
government that is honorable and ethical and not overreaching,’ Chairman
Dan Backer said Thursday.”...

A core staff member for Senator Cruz spoke with Breitbart Texas and
stated, “We said that we did not authorize Senator Cruz’s name to be
used on any such material and reached out to the group to ask them to
remove his name from any of their materials used for that purpose.”

The debacle surrounding Backer’s fundraising using Senator Cruz’s image does not stand alone. Recently, Backer came under fire
for using Sarah Palin’s image in fundraising ads as well. Appealing to
the Tea Party’s heavy percentage of elderly Americans, another effort
Backer participated in urged Americans to fight socialism and draft
Sarah Palin--even though Palin indicated she had no intention of
running....

The recent polling suggests Branch’s attacks backfired, as Paxton now enjoys an even wider 17 point lead over Branch.